Medical devices can perform a plurality of functions. For example, medical devices can be used to sense, monitor, derive and/or calculate any of a plurality of physiological statuses of a patient, including the patient's blood pressure, temperature, respiration rate, blood oxygen level, end-tidal carbon dioxide level, pulmonary function, blood glucose level, and/or weight. Medical devices can also be used to image or scan a patient's body, using any one of a number of methods, for instance, ultrasound, X-rays, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), molecular imaging, amongst others. Medical devices can also be used to deliver a treatment, such as facilitating or assisting a patient's breathing (e.g., using a ventilator), delivering an electric shock (e.g., using a defibrillator), delivering drugs, gases, compounds, or other medical agents, and other treatments. Furthermore, medical devices can also be used to assist in other aspects of a patient's care, such as reporting on the current real-time location of a patient, recording a patient's condition for later analysis, or communicating a patient's condition to a remote party, such as a hospital or physician.
In a medical treatment context, some or all of these functions can require tight time synchronization to function well, or at all. In particular, for applications where two or more functions need to be combined, synchronization between these two or more functions can be necessary or desirable.